New Snowden or Crook? The Man Who Drives Wedge Between EU and Vietnam – Sputnik International

Asia & Pacific

10:58 21.08.2017(updated 11:35 21.08.2017) Get short URL

The high-profile case of Trinh Xuan Thanh, a Vietnamese economic fugitive reportedly abducted by Vietnamese security agents from the streets of Berlin, has driven a wedge between the EU and Hanoi. Sputnik sheds light on the issue of the "Vietnamese Snowden".

On August 2, German media reported that Trinh Xuan Thanh had been returned toVietnam forhis role inthe theft of $150 million duringhis tenure aschairman ofa subsidiary ofthe PetroVietnam energy company.

The incident caused an angry outcry inthe mainstream media and a mixed response inVietnam itself withLuat Khoa (Justice) magazine comparing Trinh Xuan Thanh withfugitive former NSA specialist Edward Snowden who now lives inRussia.

Snowden laid bare the global system ofsurveillance established bythe US and large-scale human rights violations byWashington. He did that ona pro bono basis withoutasking formoney, Kolotov said.

He added that unlikeSnowden, who was driven byidealistic intentions, Trinh Xuan Thanh is a big-time swindler who apparently acted aspart ofan organized group.

The Germans refused toextradite him because they hoped toextract some state secrets fromhim, compromise the corrupt officials and businessmen he worked withand, using the obtained information, toget lucrative contracts bypromising them safe asylum inGermany, Vladimir Kolotov continued.

After Trinh Xuan Thanh disappeared, the Germans blamed it onthe Vietnamese authorities and started blackmailing them. If the Vietnamese government backtracks it would encourage other corrupt officials tosteal and flee abroad, he added.

The Trinh Xuan Thanh case is part ofthe Vietnamese Communist Partys ongoing crackdown oncorruption bysenior officials who put their personal wellbeing beforethe interests ofthe state, thus undermining the peoples trust inCommunity party and the government.

The very same thing happened inthe Soviet Union where corrupt government officials betrayed the countrys interests forpersonal gain.

Had it not been forthe $150 million, good connections and the knowledge ofstate secrets Trinh Xuan Thanh had, the Germans would have sent him back home injiffy, Kolotov concluded.

Meanwhile, Berlin has demanded that Trinh Xuan Thanh be allowed toreturn toGermany and declared the intelligence attach atthe Vietnamese embassy persona-non-grata.

In a commentary forSputnik, Anton Tsvetov, an expert atthe Center forStrategic Studies inMoscow, said that duringthe recent G20 summit inHamburg, the Vietnamese side requested the extradition ofTrinh Xuan Thanh who had applied forpolitical asylum inGermany.

It looks likethe Germans refused [to extradite Trinh Xuan Thanh] and the Vietnamese simply ran outof patience, especially now that their anti-corruption campaign is infull swing, Tsvetov said.

Sputnik/ Maksim Blinov

All this will obviously deal a serious blow toVietnams relations withGermany and the EU, which have previously criticized the Vietnamese authorities fortheir persecution ofindependent bloggers. Hanoi didnt likethat and it looks likeit is ready fora further escalation oftensions withEurope, Anton Tsvetov said.

Trinh Xuan Thanh disappeared afterbeing accused ofcausing 150 million dollars worth offinancial damage tothe company he worked for.

Since then Thanhs capture has been a high priority forthe Vietnamese government, which had been tracking his movements sincehe fled the country in2016.

In December 2016, Communist Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong said that his capture was ofthe highest priority.

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New Snowden or Crook? The Man Who Drives Wedge Between EU and Vietnam - Sputnik International